Far From The Hall Of Fame, A Football Legend Prefers A Private Life In Texas.

These Days, Baugh Enjoys Home Field

July 27, 2000|By Don Pierson, Tribune Pro Football Writer.

SNYDER, Texas — The winds of change somehow manage to miss West Texas, where every other kind of wind seems constant. This is where kids are told cattle are bred primarily to provide the cowhide for footballs.

It's where Slingin' Sammy Baugh still lives and reigns as football's greatest link between the 20th and 21st Centuries.

For the first time the Pro Football Hall of Fame is inviting every member to this week's induction ceremonies. Baugh, 86, will not attend. He hasn't been back to Canton, Ohio, since he was inducted with the first class in 1963. He doesn't fly anymore, mainly because he doesn't want or need to.

"I promised myself if I got to the point where I didn't have to go anywhere, I wouldn't," he said.

They come to him instead.

The first of the great passers, Baugh resides on his ranch in Rotan, 25 miles east of Snyder, 25 miles north of Sweetwater, where Baugh threw footballs through a tire tied to a tree on his way to fame at TCU and the Washington Redskins.

It is a concession for him to travel to Snyder, a town of 12,000 where a nine-hole golf course at Western Texas College served as host to his second annual Sammy Baugh Celebrity Golf Tournament in June. The handwritten sign in the clubhouse warns against spitting tobacco in the drinking fountain but an exception could be made for Baugh.

Baugh created a stir last November when he suggested the 1940 Redskins lost to the Bears by the famous score of 73-0 in the NFL Championship Game largely because his teammates were so mad at Redskins owner George Preston Marshall they didn't care about the outcome.

At his golf tournament, Baugh reiterated that contention.

"We beat them 7-3 two weeks before," Baugh said of the Bears. "I know they didn't improve that much."

The 7-3 game was actually three weeks earlier, after which Marshall labeled the Bears "a bunch of crybabies" because they complained about a late interference penalty that wasn't called. Bears coach George Halas put Marshall's quotes on the bulletin board to motivate his players for the championship.

"I didn't know for sure, but our players--especially the linemen--were mad at Mr. Marshall for what he put in the Chicago papers," Baugh said. "He was running the coach down and the players. It made our bunch of linemen so mad. They were ticked off from the time he started that stuff and they just went through the motions."

Clyde Shugart, a Redskins lineman who played in the game, told The Associated Press in November he didn't recall anything like Baugh's story.

"I played as hard as I could," Shugart said.

Baugh said he never saw the film and "it was hard to remember things. I don't see how we could beat a team 7-3 two weeks before and come back and play a game the way we played."

The day of the 73-0 rout, Baugh was asked if the outcome would have been different had Charlie Malone not dropped an early touchdown pass. Baugh recalled last month what he said: "I told them it would have been 73-6."

Baugh said he is sure Malone didn't drop that pass on purpose but is also sure the Redskins linemen had more than one reason to spite Marshall.

Baugh, who led the Redskins to the NFL title over the Bears in his rookie season of 1937 after signing a contract for $8,000, said he found out in 1938 that Marshall refused Hall of Fame running back Cliff Battles a $250 raise to $3,000.

"If I had known that, I would have paid him out of my own money," Baugh said. "I knew right there those linemen weren't making anything."

Baugh's tournament benefits Sul Ross State University in Alpine, 300 miles farther west. It is run by Baugh's longtime golf partner, Bob O'Day, a Sul Ross alum.

This is not a 21st Century tournament. The local bank foreclosed on the headquarters hotel two days before the start. The cost to play was only $150. Baugh became sick the night before the tournament started, but was back on the course in time to play. Nobody complained.

"We can't get him to go anywhere else for this tournament," said former Bears scout Jim Parmer, an ex-Philadelphia Eagles player who faced Baugh twice a year. Parmer currently lives in Abilene and is Baugh's occasional golf partner.